New paintings and regular art updates.
Three years ago I painted my hubby ‘my green man’. It came up on my Facebook memories today. He is a green man, gardening does him good, helps him to try and relax. He is a bunging in gardener, there’s no rhyme or reasoning to his planting, and he just plants things where he likes, but he must have green fingers. That’s why I painted him as a green man. Acrylic on canvas.
Mad back yard. The heavy rain has pepped up all the plants. You have to avoid the baskets. I want to put some washing on the line but it’s clouded over again. I’m tired and hot. A friend came round and after a cup of tea helped cut back part of a large bush that had layered itself (spread outwards with side shoots). Of course I stayed inside for most of the time, but decided to say hi after a rest and ended up helping a bit by cutting off small twigs. By the time I came back in I was exhausted and tired out, hence the shaking. But looking at this really cheered me up. A real plethora and pleasure of flora!
The trouble with attaching hanging baskets to the fence is that as they grow and get heavier with watering it starts to bend. It’s quite a strong trellis but I think it will need replacing in a couple of years.
The wall the fence is attached to is the same old bricks the house is made of with curved coping stones on the top to keep moisture out of the centre of the wall.
Each basket has many different plants crammed in them, then there are a series of smaller baskets with single species in them. There are individual pots balanced on the top of the wall and lots of them on the ground below. Planting up pots requires a balance of compost with crocks (broken pottery) in the bottom of the pots so they have drainage, but then I usually place a saucer or a bowl underneath to catch the water so that it doesn’t dry out. We have a hose pipe so we can water everything regularly.
Gardening, Yoga, Choir practice
All in one day!
Poppies to pot
Marigolds and lobelia
Plants bought needed tending.
Then oh!
Blissful Yoga
But with stretches
The Cobra and Sphinx
That have made my legs ache.
Finally, singing
Bunting still hanging
Samoan and Maori
English, fragrent and flowery.
So much in a few hours.
A good rest?
That will be best
X
What do you call a mixture of Snow and Hail? Sn-ail! I think it was ‘sn-ailing’ this afternoon. We went out to Trentham Gardens in Stoke on Trent and bought a few plants, maybe it’s a bit cold to plant them though.
Ivy leaf pelagoniums and a gazenia (not sure of spelling). We saw them for sale at a florists in Wolstanton, Newcastle-under-Lyme today. I decided to get them as the weather is changing and I want to extend the flowering season in the garden. We also got some cyclamen including normal ones, and some called petticoat cyclamen which are more splayed out than the original type. I picked up a red sedum too.
It’s heading towards autumn now. I noted a tinge of broken or red on some of the trees as we were driving over to Wolstanton. It will be here soon. The nights are drawing in too.
When we got home I popped to the shops. While I was there I was tempted and grabbed a box of mixed tulip bulbs, and another one of various small flower bulbs. Gardening is a wonderful occupation. Try it if you can.
Urban sketchers Stoke-on-Trent new challenge, a task you love.
I am trying to plant up hanging baskets, but I only have a few plug plants, and a bit of compost to put them in.
Luckily some of my plants overwintered and are regrowing, so I have a few fushia plants, a lobelia, and some trailing plants with pale purple flowers that is in this basket. I’ve put a few begonias in the pot hanging below it.
I put one basket under another to get a tiered effect. Usually these are full of plants, now I’ve done two with tumbler tomatoes which you put in baskets and as they grow they hang down for picking.
Yes these are tasks I love. X
packets of seeds….. Free!
What a lovely surprise, a gardening magazine we sometimes get had seven free packets of seeds with it today. Most of them are worth about £3 each so that means about £20 worth of free flowers.
The other good thing is they can be planted now in late summer or early autumn to establish plants for next years display. All I have to do is dig out a load of nettles so I can plant these out!
The garden is very overgrown so I’m getting someone in to help cut it back a bit. I love it but it’s hard work having big trees and shrubs. A warning, you need to keep on top of stuff to keep it looking good. Anyway I’m hoping by tomorrow I will be feeling a bit better and can do something.
I took these photos a couple of days ago outside the studios at Spode. Su Hurrell is an artist there and she works with urban garden planting. She works with other artists and uses objects like washing machines, old chairs, a chest of drawers and other objects.
Other places are being greened in the town centre. There is Spode Rise garden by the China Halls in Kingsway, Stoke, and then some wild planting along London Road and Hartshill and in Lonsdale Street.
I enjoy seeing these plants, it’s great to see people using planting in exciting new ways.
Most weekends I’ve been busy recently with other things, but I decided to get out and plant up tomatoes in the grow bags and added some pepper plants ( which had sadly been partly munched by slugs). We don’t use any pesticides or herbicides so everything just keeps growing and we seem to have lots of bees round the cotoneaster flowers. We saw a couple of butterflies too. There is a bare patch where we are having a summer house put in soon. Then I can get some clematis growing over the fence.
Blurry shot of a bee on the cotoneaster plant. Its covered in tiny flowers so very attractive to them.
Mallaband-Brown